of Apocrypha

25 Pages·2008·2.67 MB·English

The Disorder of Books: Priscillian's
Canonical Defense of Apocrypha*
Andrew S. Jacobs
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Caveat omnia apocrypha.
-Jerome
* Introduction
Heresy and Apocrypha
Historianso f ancient Christianityd erive a certain satisfaction from the fact that
Athanasiuso f Alexandria,t he ferventa rchitecto f Nicene Christianity,s hould also
be the first known ecclesiastical authorityt o "list precisely the twenty-sevenb ooks
thate ventuallyf ormedt he generallya cceptedc anon of the New Testament."'T his
intersection of canon and creed abets the notion that Christianitym atured and
solidified in the latter half of the fourth century;2 henceforth heresy and
*A shorter version of this essay was delivered at the 1999 Society of Biblical Literature/
American Academy of Religion Regional Meeting in Durham, North Carolina. I would like to
thank Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dale Martin of Yale
University for their helpful comments and suggestions, as well as the anonymous reader for
the Harvard Theological Review. In this article, the following abbreviations are used in ad-
dition to those abbreviations consistent with HTR style: CChr. ser. apoc. = Corpus Christianorum,
series apocryphorum; CChr. ser. lat. = Corpus Christianorum, series latina.
1David Brakke, "Canon Formation and Social Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt: Athanasius
of Alexandria's Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter," HTR 87 (1994) 395. More general overviews
gloss over the fact that this is the "earliest extant Christian document" to produce such a list
(Brakke, "Canon Formation," 395, emphasis added); see, for instance, Frances M. Young,
From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and Its Background (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1983) 80: "The 39th letter ... contains the first list of New Testament books which
exactly corresponds with the twenty-seven later canonized."
2The coincidence of credal and scriptural "canons" seems to direct the study of Hans von
Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible (trans. J. A. Baker; Philadelphia: Fortress,
1972); see especially his comments on 327-33.
HTR 93.2 (2000) 135-59
136 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
extracanonical reading would together constitute evidence of theological
backsliding, or, worse, deliberate and malicious distortion of an agreed-upon
truth.3If Eusebius at the beginning of the fourthc enturyi s frustratinglyv ague on
what is and is not "canonical,"h is reticencef rom within a period of dogmatic flux
is understandable.4 In contrast, Athanasius toward the century's end is
reassuringly firm, scripturally and doctrinally.5F rom Easter of 367 onward,
accordingt o such a narrative,h eresy and apocryphaw ould become coterminous,
and a messy chaptero f Christianh istory could be closed.
This tidy narrativei s, of course, disruptedb y more careful attention to the
social contexts of canon formation.A s David Brakke has argued persuasively,
"Athanasius'sd isputesw ith otherE gyptianC hristianso ver the biblical canon were
not struggles over lists of books alone, but reflected more fundamentalc onflicts
between competing modes of Christian authority, spirituality, and social
organization."T6 he canon of the ChristianB ible did not coalesce any more natu-
rally thand id the "canons"o f Christiano rthodoxy,a nd all was not settledb y Easter
367.7T heologicala ndc ulturalc oncernse nergizedc onflicts over a scripturacl anon:
"authoritys,p iritualitya, nds ocial organization"in fourth-centuryC hristianityc ame
to be contested arounda n "ordero f books."
* Reading and Orthodoxy
Historians of late antiquity have begun recently to attend to the cultural
significance of reading, drawing in part on the work of Roger Chartier,i n his
3For such a representation of heresy pushed back even into the third century, see H. E. W.
Turner, The Pattern of Christian Truth:A Study in the Relations between Orthodoxy and Heresy
in the Early Church (London: Mowbray, 1954) 102-48, representing heretical theology as
"dilution," "distortion," "archaism," "truncation," and "evacuation."
4See Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.25.1-6 (SC 31:133-34), where he attempts to distinguish
between opoXoyoupEvaa, vTIXEyopEva, vo6a, and aipETIKc.
5The contrast between the two figures is made by C. R. Gregory, Canon and Text of the New
Testament (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1907) 269-70: "With this list in hand the simple man
can at once settle the dispute with the heretic in favor of orthodoxy. We find in the list [of
Athanasius] the whole of our New Testament. The notable advance upon Eusebius is that now not
a single one of these books remains as a disputed book." Partially cited by Bart D. Ehrman, "The
New Testament Canon of Didymus the Blind," VC 37 (1983) 1. See also Ehrman( "New Testament
Canon," 19-20, n. 1) on other normative interpretationso f Athanasius's Festal Epistle 39.
6Brakke, "Canon Formation," 399. On canon formation as an advanced stage in cultural
Listenwissenschaft, the defining feature of which is closure, see Jonathan Z. Smith, "Sacred
Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon," in idem, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to
Jonestown (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism; Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1982) 47-48; and his recent addendum, "Canons, Catalogues and Classics," in A. van der Kooij
and K. van der Toorn, eds., Canonization and Decanonization (Studies in the
History of Religions 82; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 295-311, especially 303-9.
7See Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (original German ed.,
1934; 1971; trans. and eds. Robert Kraft and GerhardK rodel; reprinted Mifflintown, PA: Sigler,
ANDREW S. JACOBS 137
applicationo f "thes ociology of texts"t o the functiono f books and librariesi n early
modemE urope.C8 hartierh as employedt he worko f MichelF oucault,P ierreB ourdieu,
and Michel de Certeau( amongo thers),a ll of whom have emphasizedt he complex
interplayo f theorya nd practice,o f power and knowledge,i n the formationo f social
structureas ndc ulturaild entityT. hey have pointedo ut how the regulationo f practice
amounts to an exercise of power, and have helped historians interested in the
politics of identity to deconstructs ites where institutionalp ower has attemptedt o
naturalizei tself.9C hartier'st heoreticalo bservationso n the complex and culturally
determinedo rganizationo f reading practices can help us, in a social history of
canon, to pry apartt he often naturalizeda nd uninterrogated" formation"o f early
Christian reading practices. As Chartier observes in his own work, "By
reintroducing variation and difference where the illusion of universality
spontaneouslys prings up, such reflection may help us to get rid of some of our
over-sured istinctionsa nd some over-familiart ruisms."10
One such truism, perhaps caricatured above, is the pairing of heresy and
apocrypha,i nscribedi n Athanasius'sF estal Epistle 39.1 It is quite easy to accept
1996) esp. 147-228. On the fluidity of the New Testament canon after Athanasius, even in the
limited area of Alexandria, see Ehrman, "New Testament Canon," 18-19.
'Roger Chartier, The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the
Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries (trans. Lydia G. Cochrane; Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1994). Chartier's use of "bibliography" as a "sociology of texts" derives principally from
D. F. McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (The Panizzi Lectures, 1985) (London:
The British Library, 1986). See, for instance, Mark Vessey, "The Forging of Orthodoxy in Latin
Christian Literature: A Case Study," Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996) 495-513 and
Kim Haines-Eitzen, "'Girls Trained in Beautiful Writing': Female Scribes in Roman Antiquity
and Early Christianity," Journal of Early Christian Studies 6 (1998) 629-46.
9Throughout this essay, I rely especially on conceptions of power, institutionalization, and
resistance as formulated by Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction
(trans. Robert Hurley; New York: Pantheon, 1978), especially 81-97. For Chartier's own debt
to these theorists, see Chartier, Order of Books, 1-4, 27-32, 58-59, and 98-100.
'?Chartier, Order of Books, xi.
"The text of this epistle survives in Greek and Coptic fragments. Greek: Pdricles-Pierre
Joannou, ed., Fonti: Discipline gene'rale antique (IVe-IXe s.), vol. 2: Les canons des Peres
grecs (Rome: Grottaferrata, 1963), 71-76; Coptic: L.-Th. Lefort, ed., S. Athanase: Lettres
festales et pastorales en copte (CSCO 150; Scriptores Coptici 19; Louvain: L. Durbecq, 1955)
15-22, 58-62; R.-G. Coquin, "Les lettres festales d'Athanase (CPG 2102): Un nouveau
complement: Le manuscrit IFAO, Copte 25," Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 15 (1984)
133-58. Composite English translation found in David Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of
Asceticism (Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) 326-32. Here: Athanasius,
Festal Epistle 39 (Ioannou 75.26-76.8): "Kai opcos, ayaTrrTOi, K&KEIVCKOVav OVl/OpiEvcKOaVQ,
TOUTCOVav ayIv(coKOpEvco., ou6Capou TCJV aTTOKpu4COVp VrpLTi, aXAa a'ipETIKcOV EOTIV 'ETTVOla....
This is not to suggest that Athanasius is the first Christian authority to condemn apocrypha.
The harmful nature of the production and dissemination of apocrypha was central to Irenaeus's
argument against "the Gnostics": see Alain Le Boulluec, La notion d'he'resie dans la litterature
grecque, Ile-llle siecles (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1985) 226-29; and idem, "L'6criture
138 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Athanasius'so wn bias and assume that where extracanonicalr eading begins, so
too does self-conscious deviationf rom orthodoxn orms.12Y et, as Chartierr eminds
us, "We must also keep in mind thatr eadingi s always a practicee mbodied in acts,
spaces, and habits."' Athanasius's Festal Epistle (much like his dogmatic
writingso n Nicene orthodoxy)a ttemptsa double assertiono f power that needs to
be recognized: on the one hand, the institution of an order of books that is
definitive, authoritative,a nd closed; on the other hand, the masking of his own
agency in the institutiono f that order.A s I shall outline below, Athanasius'so wn
"embodiment"in readingv anishes within his ordero f books. The orthodoxc anon
as imagineda t the end of the fourthc entury,I suggest, sought the delimitationa nd
control of Christianr eading practices (and thus of Christian identity) through
gestures of power that, once effective, were simultaneouslyo bscured.
Suchg estureso f powera rem oste videnta t pointso f resistancet;o understanbde tter
the institutional deployment of the Christian canon in late antiquity,
thereforeI, proposet akings eriouslyo ne suche xtantr esistantte xt:t heL iberd efide et de
apocryphism, ostl ikelya uthoredb y thec ondemnedS panishh ereticP, riscillian.4I want,
fort hem omentt, o readP riscillian'tsr eatisea s thew orko f a professed" orthodoxC" hris-
tiano f thel atef ourthc enturyo: ne whoa cknowledgeas n inspiredc anono f scripturew, ho
fearst he sameh ereticsa s theo thero rthodoxw, ho unswervinglyfo llowst hec reedo f the
holy anda postolicc hurchb, uta lso-as ano rthodoxC hristian-defendst her eadinga nd
interpretatioonf extracanonicatel xtsc alleda pocryphaI. approachP riscillian'sd efense
of apocryphain this way not in ordert o providea defenseo rj ustificationo f Priscillian
and his followers; I am not simply "enamored"o f an ancient heretic, practicing
"historical advocacy" at the expense of "even-handed"h istory.5 Rather, I sug-
comme norme heresiologique dans les controverses des IIe et IIIe siecles (domaine grec)," Jahrbuch
fur Antike und Christentum 23 (1996) 66-75. It is Athanasius's fourth-century configuration of
exegesis, canon, and heresy, and Priscillian's "orthodox"r esistance, that is of note here.
'See the interesting remarks of Liguori G. MUller, The "De haerisibus" of St. Augustine: A
Translationw ith an Introductiona nd Commentary( PatristicS tudies 90; Washington,D .C.: Catholic
University Press, 1956): "But with the discoveries of Priscillian's writings, opinion has changed
considerably. Some critics are even inclined to acquit him entirely. However, some traces of these
heretical tenets can be found in his newly discovered works. Tractatus III (CSEL 18.44-56) seems
to confirm the charge of his reliance on Apocrypha" (199, my emphasis).
'3Chartier,O rder of Books, 3.
'4The text was discovered in a very early (fifth- or sixth-century) manuscript. On authorship,
see Henry Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 63-69 (62 on the MS date, 65 on the quality of the Latin ["contorted
prose"]); and Virginia Burrus, The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority, and the Priscillianist
Controversy (Transformation of the Classical Heritage 24; Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1995) 166-67, n. 8. For my own purposes, it is enough to determine the approximate date
of this text (certainly late fourthc entury) and the terms underw hich its debate is being carriedf orth.
'5See the concerns expressed by Patrick Henry, "Why Is Contemporary Scholarship So
Enamored of Ancient Heretics?" Studia Patristica 17 (1982) 125, and the trenchant response
of Burrus, Making of a Heretic, 1-2.
ANDREW S. JACOBS 139
gest that we can perceive more clearly what was at stake in the demarcation of
a definitive and closed canon of scriptures if we accept Priscillian's own terms
for his defense of extracanonical reading. We shall find that what is being
contested is precisely the double gesture of power that I described in
Athanasius's Festal Epistle 39: the masking of individual agency in the inter-
pretation of scripture, through the institutionalization of a fixed and
determinative order of books.
I should make it clear from the outset that I do not intend to indict or acquit
either Athanasiuso r Priscilliano f the inscriptiono f power throught he institution
of ecclesiastical hierarchy. Priscillian is not the freethinking liberal, nor is
Athanasiust he totalitariand ictator,o f early Christianh istory. Both Christiansa re
attemptingt o delineateh ow power is made to functioni n the earlyC hristianw orld.
The world of late antiquityw as a world of hierarchies,i n which individualsw ere
understoodt o occupy regulatedp ositions in a vertically structuredw orld.'6T he
difference between Athanasius and Priscillian-that point at which canon and
apocryphai ntervene as meaningfulc ategories of orthodoxd ivision-emerges in
theiro wn methodso f understandinga ppropriatem anifestationso f Christianp ower.
I shall begin, then, by examining the rhetoric of Athanasius's Festal Epistle
39, in order to uncover more closely his strategies for inscribing and masking
the power of Christianr eaders.H e links apocryphat o heresy, orthodoxyt o canon,
and then insists that attemptst o establish individual merit in Christiani nterpre-
tationa re misguided and unorthodox.T he canon appears,t he interpreterv anishes.
Next I shall locate Priscillian's attempts to defend particular instances of
apocryphal interpretation:I shall show that his defense of apocrypha, while
relying on notions of canon and creed not dissimilar from Athanasius's, adds the
extra component of individual reading authority and the open display of
intellectual and ascetic prowess. Finally, I shall attend to Augustine's later
condemnations of the Pricillianists, condemnations that focus on heretical
reading practices and can illuminate the reason for Athanasian success and
Priscillianist failure in the fifth-centuryc hurch.
* "The True Teacher": Athanasius on the Canon
The Problem of Categories
Ecclesiasticalw ritersi n the fourthc enturyf oundt hemselvesi ncreasinglye mbroiled
in the problemo f scripturalc ategories.F or instance,i n his repeatedd efense of his
new Latint ranslationo f the HebrewO ld Testament,J eromep romotedh is reliance
on the Hebraica veritas as a means of untangling unclear New Testament
passages: specifically, points where the apostles and evangelists remarkedt hat
"See, for insance, the essays of Peter Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1978).
140 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
something was "found in Scripture"t hat was not, in fact, to be found in the
Septuagint.'7ForJ erome, the answer lay in the confusion of translatione fforts
carriedo ut over centuries,f rom Hebrew (lingua Domini nostri), to Greek,t o (pre-
Hieronymian)L atin.B y unravelingt his linguistic mess, the answers can be found
withint he canon of scriptures ince, as Jeromec asuallyr emarked," thec hurchd oes
not recognize apocrypha."'8
By the last decades of the fourthc entury, however, the status of "apocrypha"
was much less clear than this offhand remark,o r than the vitriolic Festal Epistle
39 of Athanasius,m ight suggest.'9J eromeh imself cannots eem to decide from one
project to the next whether the label apocrypha, the acknowledgment of
noncanonicals tatus,n ecessarilyd eterminest he inutilityo f the text in question.2H0 is
contemporarya ndr ivalR ufinusd escribesl ibri apocryphia s those Christianb ooks
that were neither canonical, "from which [the Fathers] wish that we derive the
assertionso f our faith,"n or ecclesiastical," whicht hey wish to be readi n churches,
however not appealedt o as an authorityf or the confirmationo f faith."2T1 his tax-
onomy leaves open the possibility thata pocryphalt exts are useful and permissible
to the Christianr eader, although not in specific doctrinalo r liturgical contexts.
Religious truthi s not perceived as confined to the limited numbero f texts that are
canonical (or kanonizomena).22
Athanasius,t oo, had recognized that certain books that were "not canonical"
17Includintgh e following New Testamentp assages:M att2 :13,23; John 19:37; 1 Cor 2:9; John7 :38.
'8"Apocryphan escit ecclesia": Praefatio in libro Paralipomenon (iuxta Hebraeos). Text in R.
Weber et al., eds., Biblia sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem (2 vols.; Stuttgart: Wurtembergische
Bibelanstalt, 1964), here 1:546.21-547.30. The argumenta ppearsa lso in Ep. 57.7-9 (CSEL5 4:513-
14), Praefatio in Pentateucho, and Praefatio in libro Ezrae (Weber 1:3.11-16, 1:638.22-28). See
Adam Kamesar, Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible: A Study of the Quaestiones
Hebraicae in Genesim (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) 50-70.
'9See the summary of Finian D. Taylor, "Augustine of Hippo's Notion and Use of Apocrypha"
(Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 1978) 1-68 and 277-83, including the observations that
"we can speak about the apocryphao nly in so far as we speak about the canon of scripture"( p. 23),
and "the apocrypha arose in an environment that was a combination of religious enthusiasm and
pious curiosity" (p. 277).
20See for instance De viris illustribus 6 (TU 14.1:11) on the Epistle of Barnabas, which,
according to Jerome, is "reckoned among the apocryphal scriptures (apocryphas scripturas)";
nevertheless, he does not seem to indicate that the writing is a forgery, and accepts that Barnabas
wrote it "for the edification of the church."
2'Rufinus, Expositio symboli 36-38 (CChr ser. lat. 20:171-72). Rufinus did not see fit to
introduce these terms as translations of Eusebius's o6pooyoupEva,& vTiAEyopEva,a nd v60a (see
above, n. 4), using instead "a nonnullis dubitatum,"" ostenditur,"a nd "quam maxime dubitatur"
(GCS 9.1:251-53).
22See Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and
Significance (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) 165: "The term [apocrypha]o riginally had an honourable
significance as well as a derogatoryo ne, depending on those who made use of the word." By citing
such doctors of the church as Jerome and Augustine in a footnote (n. 2), Metzger implicitly (and
unnecessarily) suggests that such evaluations might divide along lines of orthodoxy and heresy.
ANDREW S. JACOBS 141
had nonetheless been prescribed" by the fathersf or instructioni n the discourse of
piety."23H e thus divides Christianl iteraturei nto threec onceptualp iles: the books
thata re "canonized,"t hose thata reo nly "read"( such as Tobit or the Didache), and
apocrypha.24T hroughout the argument of the Epistle, however, the middle
categoryt ends to slip away, leaving a roughe quationb etween those books thata re
"notc anonized"a nd the "apocrypha."In Festal Epistle 39 he is more insistentt hat
those books that he designates as apocryphaa re "thec onception of heretics,"a nd
thatt hey are "filledw ith myths... [and]t heirv oices aree mptya ndp olluted."2T5h at
apocryphas tem ultimatelyf rom the disingenuoush ands of heretics has prompted
Athanasius's careful delimitationo f the twenty-two books of the Old Testament
(rc... TraxAa6icla oriKr) and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament (-ri
Kalvlc iaefiKrl)c: 26" I have not written these things as if I were teaching.... Rather,
because I heardt hat the heretics, particularlyt he wretchedM elitians, were boast-
ing about the books that they call 'apocryphal."'2A7 precise and fixed order of
books thus serves to delimit orthodoxC hristiang roups from heretics;a s Chartier
has remarked:" a historyo f readingm ust identify the mechanismst hatd istinguish
the various communitieso f readersa nd traditionso f reading."28
Not only does Athanasiusa lign a specificc ategoryo f books (apocryphau) niquely
withc ommunitieso f heretics( andt hosew homt hey "deceive"),2h9e furthera ssociates
witht heseb ooksa ndr eadersa certain" traditionof reading"A: thanasiusi,n contrastt o
his noncanonicaol pponentsd, oesn otw rite" asi f teaching."3B rakkeh as astutelyn oted
that it is precisely the conflict between modes of Christian
instructiona ndi nstitutionaal ffiliationt hati s being wagedi n this canon-makingF estal
Epistle:" Athanasius'esp iscopalf ormo f Christianitys,i tuatedi n the parishc hurcha nd
placinga uthorityin bishopsa ndp riests,c ompetedw itha na cademicf ormo f Christian-
ity, situatedi n the schoolrooma nd placinga uthorityin charismatict eachers."3T1 he
"Athanasius Festal Epistle 39 (Joannou 75.17-22): "ou KavoviwopEva pEv, TETUITWrpEVa6 '
TrapaT COV1T aTEpcoVaa vayIVCOKEO0aTl OISa pTI TTpoaEpXOpEVOKIaS' lP OUAOiEVOIS KaTrIXE6aiOTl OV
Tis EuoEBEPiasA oyov." These texts include the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach,
Esther, Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas (Joannou 75.22-25).
24Athanasius Festal Epistle 39 (Joannou 75.26-76.3).
2SIbid.( Joannou 76.3-4, Lefort 20.26-28; Brakke, Athanasius, 330).
26Ibid. (Joannou 72.26-74.26).
27Ibid. (Lefort 21.11-14; Brakke, Athanasius, 332).
28Chartier,O rder of Books, 4.
29Athanasius Festal Epistle 39 (Joannou 76.7-8).
30Ibid.( Lefort 21.11): aN zancE ITCBW.I t is perhaps an unintended irony on Athanasius's
part that this rhetorical strategy closely echoes one employed in the Epistle of Barnabas 1.8,
where the author speaks "not as a teacher" (oUx cs 61&iaoKaXo[Ss C 172:78]); the Epistle of
Barnabas was very populari n Alexandria,a nd is not mentioned as one of the "useful,"n oncanonical
texts in Athanasius's letter. See James Carleton Paget, The Epistle of Barnabas: Outlook and
Background (WUNT 2.64; Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1994).
3Brakke, "Canon Formation," 398. We should note, however, that the Melitians, the only
142 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
physical locations of readingc ontrastedb y Athanasius,t he churcha nd the school-
room, might therefore suggest contrastinga uthoritieso f reading: "bishops and
priests"v ersus "charismaticte achers."3B2u t while the heretical" teacher"r emains
the object of Athanasians corn, he does not choose to establisht he ecclesiastically
sanctionedb ishop in his stead. The authorityt o interprets cripture,f or Athanasius,
rests not in individuals ("teachers")b ut ratheri n the books of the canon them-
selves: "Let us be satisfied with only the Scripturei nspired by God to instruct
us."33A t the base, of course, we must recognize that this is a struggle over scrip-
turali nterpretationA; thanasiusi s notj ust picking a fight over lists and incidentals.
The claim to authorityb y an individual interpreterb ecomes, for Athanasius,a n
irrelevancyo r, worse, a marko f heresy.
The Reader Vanishes
Ironically, Athanasius employs his own act of exegesis in the erasure of his
interpretivea gency. After ponderings everal passages on "teachers"i n the New
Testament,3A4 thanasiusd raws attentiont o his own readinga nd that of the Festal
Epistle's recipients:
While I was examiningt hese things, a thought occurredt o me that
requires your scrutiny [6oKipaola]. What I thought is this: The task of
the teacheri s to teach, and that of the disciple is to learn. But even if
these people [i.e., in the New Testamentp assages]t each, they are still
called "disciples,"f or it is not they who are the originatorso f what
they proclaim;r ather,t hey are at the service of the words of the true
Teacher.35
Beginningw ith his own interpretivea ct andt hen invokingt hato f his readers( "your
scrutiny"), Athanasius cleverly erases both: bishop and lay person alike are
"disciples,"t hat is, passive recipientso f the wisdom of God, "the true Teacher."
Since scripturei s the identifiablea nd uniquelyr eliablem ode of instruction( as the
"Word"o f the Teacher), interpretivea uthorityc an only be ensured through an
specific "heresy"n amed in Festal Epistle 39, itself operated throughe piscopal institutions and not
merely in "schoolrooms" and "charismatict eachers."
32Ont he significance of the physicality of reading practices, see Chartier, Order of Books, 3-
4. Several scholars have noted the correlation between early Christian reading practice and the
formal modes of interpretatione xecuted in philosophical schools: see Frances M. Young, "The
Rhetorical Schools and Their Influence on PatristicE xegesis," in Rowan Williams, ed., The Making
of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989) 182-99; and eadem, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997) 77-95.
3Athanasius Festal Epistle 39 (Lefort 21.20-21; Brakke, Athanasius, 332).
341 Tim 2:7; Eph 4:11; Jas 3:1; all of which seem to speak of the apostles and clergy as
"teachers."
3Athanasius Festal Epistle 39 (Coquin, "Lettresf estales," 139-40; Brakke, Athanasius, 327).
ANDREW S. JACOBS 143
orthodoxa nd authoritativoer dero f books. Insteado f defendingh is own interpretive
authority against that of heretical "teachers"-a strategy that would involve
assemblingp ersonacl riteriasu cha s educationalle velo r individuasla nctity-Athanasius
constructsa textuali nstitutionth ati s altogetheru nassailable.
Throughouht is writings( andt hroughouFt estalE pistle3 9),36A thanasiuse ngagesi n
complexa nda ggressivein terpretatioonf scripturea;t n o point,h owever,d oes he needt o
defendh is own methodo r basisf or thisi nterpretiveex ecutionT. he "teaching"h e trans-
mitst o his fellowC hristian(sa s oftena s nota gainsth eretica"l others"i)s already" there";
he is merelya n exegetical" instrumentin" theh andso f the" trueT eacher."3In7 thee nd it
is preciselyt he Athanasianv isiono f God,c hurcha, nds cripturteh ata cquiresn ormative
statust hrougha n impersonalizeodr dero f books.H is exegeticals leight-of-handis per-
suasivep reciselyb ecauseh e hasm anagedt o eraseh is own interpretivaeg ency:" Power
is tolerableo nly on conditiont hati t maska substantiapla rto f itself.I tss uccessi s propor-
tionalt o its abilityt o hide its own mechanisms."3If8 w e understanbdi blicale xegesis as
an "exerciseo f power,"w e begin to appreciateth e efficacy of Athanasius'sf aceless
powera s wieldedf romw ithina stabilizeda ndn ormative" ordero f books."
Brakke points out that "Athanasius'sa ttemptt o establish a closed canon of
Christians cripturesin fourth-centurEy gypt... was even more a conflict amonga u-
thoritativpe ersonsa ndt he sociali nstitutionas ndp racticest hats urroundetdh em,w hich
included scripture."3A9s I have suggested, however, it was more specifically the
rearticulationof the conflict not as one between" authoritativpee rsons"a nd theirr e-
spective "institutions,"b ut between "persons"w ho merely claim authoritya nd the
"institutionsw" hichp ossess it in fact.Y et we musta lso note that" Athanasius'Fs estal
Letter,f arf romb eing the decisivec limax,w as merelya signalm omenti n an ongoing
processo f Christianse lf-definition4.0"T ou nderstandth e meansb y which Athanasius's
particularc anonicali nstitutionalizatioonf scripturael xegesis might be contested,I
now turnt o Priscilliano f Avila's Booko n Apocrypha.41
36Athanasiusb egins his demonstration of the unique teaching authority of God with Matt
11:27 and Gal 1:11-12 (Festal Epistle 39 [Lefort 59.1-9]); he establishes the closed nature of
the scriptural canon with Deut 12:32 (Festal Epistle 39 [Joannou 75.5-6 and Lefort 20.10-
12]); and proves the heretical origins of apocrypha through 2 Tim 4:3-4 (Festal Epistle 39
[Lefort 20.23-26]).
37Brakke,A thanasius, 68, hints at this effect in other contexts: "... the episcopal party [of
Athanasius] in fourth-century Alexandria used the rhetoric of anti-intellectualism to render
their Arian opponents suspect and their own teaching invisible." The correlation between
Athanasius's exegetical and theological models (relying on the ontological gap between "Cre-
ator" and "created" and the instrumentality of earthly manifestations of the Godhead) has been
noted by Young, Biblical Exegesis, 29-45.
38Foucault, History of Sexuality, 86.
39Brakke," Canon Formation," 417.
40Ibid., 419.
41I choose this English version of Priscillian's (or his editor's?) somewhat longer title
Liber de fide et de apocryphis, although it is worth keeping in mind how integral fides is
144 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
* "The CarefulH arvester"P: riscilliano n Apocrypha
The Problem with Priscillian
It is not my intentiont o suggest that Priscillianc omposed his Liber defide et de
apocryphis in direct or even indirectr esponse to Athanasius'sF estal Epistle 39.
The two figures lived at opposite ends of the Roman Empire and were active in
their respective churchesd ecades apart:A thanasiusd ied in 373, after a tumultu-
ous episcopal careero f exile and conflict;P riscillianw as executed circa 386, after
a muchb rieferc areera s asceticl eadera ndc ontestedb ishopo f Avila.42N evertheless,
their concerns over apocryphaa nd heresy overlap in significant and illuminating
ways. Priscilliana nd Athanasiusb oth attendt o the problemso f authorityi n scrip-
tural interpretationa, t the intersectiono f ecclesiology and exegesis, and both are
concerned with issues of interpretive agency. Both insist on hierarchy, on a
distinction between canonical and apocryphal, and on a distinction between
heresy and orthodoxy.T heir respectiver eadingp ractices,h owever, describe very
differenta ttitudest owardC hristiana uthority.
The sometimes stormyc areero f Priscilliano f Avila has often been interpreted
by historians as a clash of ecclesiologies, that is, as the confrontation of the
freewheeling ascetic "charismatic"P riscillian and the increasingly "routinized"
forces of Theodosiano rthodoxy.4P3 riscillian's notoriousb reacho f the restriction
on extracanonicalr eadingc ould potentiallyf ind explanationf rom such a model.
As Max Weber theorizes, "Most, though not all, canonical sacred collections
became officially closed against secular or religiously undesirablea dditions as a
consequence of a struggle between variousc ompeting groups and prophecies for
control of the community."4T4w o of Weber's prime examples for this confronta-
tional closure are, naturally,t he HebrewB ible and the ChristianN ew Testament.45
throughout the treatise. Compare Athanasius Festal Epistle 39 (Coquin, "Lettres Festales,"
144): "So then if we seek after faith (TrloT-s), the way is for us to discover it through them (that
is, the scriptures)."
420n the date of Priscillian's execution, see Burrus, Making of a Heretic, 187-88, n. 1.
43See the summary of Burrus, Making of a Heretic, 19-21 and 172-74, nn. 67-78. This
interpretation derives ultimately from the work of Max Weber; see, for instance, The Sociol-
ogy of Religion (trans. Ephraim Fischoff; 1922; Boston: Beacon, 1993) 46-79. See also the
remarks of Chadwick, Priscillian, 79: "As a lay teacher Priscillian feels himself called to
exercise a prophetic and teaching ministry, the authority of which is found in the immediate
grace of Christ his God, not in a mediated commission transmitted through the normal and
official authorities of the Church." As will become clear, I find this statement (based, more-
over, on the Wtirzburg tractates) to be a gross caricature, and fairly inaccurate in light of the
Liber de fide et de apocryphis.
4Weber, Sociology of Religion, 68.
45Ibid., 68-69. See M. B. ter Borg, "Canon and Social Control," in van der Kooij and van
der Toorn, eds., Canonization, 411-23, for a description of canon as the stabilizing mediator
between charisma and institution during times of "cultural up-scaling," ultimately producing
a desirable form of social constraint.